Reach
by Lyros
Summary: Anders needs to escape the fallen city of Kirkwall. The only thing standing between him and freedom is one very angry enchanted elf.


Reach

The cobblestones were cold and slick beneath his bare feet. Like everyone else fleeing the beleaguered city, he had to fight his way through the streets. His boots were somewhere three blocks behind him, lying in the street where he's had to leap out of them to avoid a pool of particularly foul, sticky blood magic.

It was probably for the best that the rain had come so soon after the explosion. The ruin of the Chantry still smoldered against the horizon, but he refused to look at it. A part of him wanted to stare. He should atone. He should try to rescue the survivors. He should help Marian rebuild the city.

He couldn't do any of those things. Marian probably hated him now. The few words that had passed between them in the Gallows were enough to let him know that that bridge was burnt forever. Marian was a good woman. She couldn't abide the deaths of innocents, even if those deaths were in aid of a higher cause. That she had let Anders go at all was nothing short of a miracle.

Possibly he deserved to be standing here, alternately sweating in the heat cast by homes set ablaze by mobbing townspeople and shivering in rain that was unseasonably cool. What little magical energy he had to spare went first toward closing the wounds he'd received along the way and then to mild stunning spells to deflect anyone who decided an injured, half-naked mage was an easy mark.

He could see the easternmost gate from where he stood. It was just paces away. Less than half a minute's walk would take him out of this accursed city and back to freedom. Too many years spent within walls had taught him to be afraid. His connections to the people he healed gave him life, but they also chained him to the city. It would be good to go out into the world again. He missed his cat, but the idea of life on the run still somehow brought out his nostalgic side.

Just a few more steps and he'd be gone from this place.

_THUMP._

The sound of boots hitting the road behind him was unmistakable.

"Stop where you are, mage."

The voice was familiar. Not too deep, not too high. Male. Accented with a delicious mélange of differing tongues. The hatred was familiar, too. Fenris had directed it at him often enough over the years. Anders wasn't Anders anymore, he was just another disgusting "mage."

"Fenris, I…"

Anders tried to turn and look the other man in the face, but the bite of a sharp steel blade marked his neck before he could shift more than a finger's breadth.

"Be silent," Fenris directed. Drained as he was, Anders had no choice but to obey. Once he might have let go and given Justice the body, but that wasn't an option any longer.

Nothing happened for what felt like an eternity. He saw a husband and wife run by with their two daughters. One of the girls turned reddened eyes on him as she passed. She was young yet, but she knew what the shining cracks in Anders' skin meant. When she saw him catch her, she looked quickly away, grabbed her older sister's hand, and raced out of the city as fast as her legs could take her.

"Hawke decided to let you flee, and I didn't stop her. She thinks there's still something salvageable in you, but I know a maleficarum when I see him. You'll go on killing, won't you? That old woman never did anything to you."

Anders knew better than to say anything, but words fell out of his mouth anyway. "Elthina's death was regrettable, but necessary."

A heavy hand dropped onto his shoulder and shook him.

"Save your rationalization for the demons," Fenris muttered. "Perhaps they'll even listen." He sighed. "It isn't even the needless slaughter that galls me. What do I care for some doddering old scion of an aging faith? No, it's the loss of control that really gets me. For years we trusted you to keep that thing inside you chained up properly. Were you waiting all this time to release it at just the right moment? You've started a war, mage. A war that will swallow Kirkwall whole and spit its bones out into the sea. People you claimed to love live in this city."

Anders pulled reflexively away from the long blade Fenris still held at his throat. The elf's hands jerked on his shoulder, but something held him back from the killing blow.

"Mages have been at war in the Free Marches for centuries," Anders explained, "they just didn't realize it. You know what it's like to be a slave. You can't tell me you condone what the Chantry does to us."

"Whether or not I condone anything matters very little, it seems."

Fenris sounded so calm. It was striking, really. A decade living in the household of one of Thedas' most infamous rogues had certainly wrought a few changes in the bloodthirsty elf. His hunts were subtler now, although there was nothing subtle about standing in front of the city gates with a blade held to a helpless man's neck.

Maybe Fenris sensed the injustice in the situation, because he released Anders and shoved him forward half a step. Feeling hopeful, Anders turned to look at the man he'd once hoped might be his friend. He was disappointed. The only creature he could see gazing back at him was death.

"You'll have your escape. I owe Hawke that much. Take your time to rest. When I cut off your head, I want to be certain the specter inside you won't get away."

There wasn't anything Anders could do. He couldn't fight, and Fenris clearly wouldn't listen to reason. If he stayed, he would only die here and now.

He fled.

Men and women of every stripe hurried down the main road with their children and their belongings in tow. Some came from the slums, and they recognized Anders as he raced past them. An old woman whose name he didn't know coughed out a desperate greeting at him as he passed. He didn't even slow down. If he stopped, he'd be dead in moments, and he didn't want it to happen here. Not in front of people he knew.

Eventually he outpaced the carts and the families. Once or twice he came across small groups of Templars who were heading toward the city. If they recognized him, they gave no sign of it. They just hurried down the causeway in the opposite direction of the one the flood of refugees was taking.

The road widened when he reached the base of the cliff Kirkwall had been built upon. Sheer drops on either side gentled into flat farmlands dotted with small, thatched houses. Anders was saddened to see the state of the land. Crops lay overgrown and dying in the fields, forgotten by owners who had long since departed. After running by an empty house for the third time, Anders doubled back and sought refuge inside.

He sensed magic somewhere inside the derelict farmhouse, and he found that a bit surprising. A man had to be either very brave or very stupid to practice magic outside of a Circle Tower. Anders still wasn't sure which side of that fence he fell on.

The source of the magic turned out to be an enchanted ice chest. It was quite old, and the chilling dweomer was fading, but the apples and sliced beef inside were still good. Anders snatched these prizes up and swiftly ate them. He found a few lyrium potions in a nearby cupboard and took those too. As always, he regretted the need to steal. The family that owned this land might never return. They'd left this treasure behind because it was too heavy to carry on a long journey. That knowledge didn't keep Anders' guts from squirming around the bits of meat and fruit as they settled uneasily in his stomach.

The main cottage had probably been properly thatched, once. Now it was pocked with large holes where the rain had rotted the straw through. Everything stank of mildew, and water pooled across more than half the rough wooden floor. Anders didn't care. He'd slept in far worse surroundings. He'd slept in the open forest during a hail storm. He'd slept in the sewers at high summer. Neither experience was one he especially cared to repeat, but he knew there was a great deal to be said for a place to get in out of the weather.

Somewhere behind him, an extremely canny elf was stalking his trail. That fact almost kept him awake. He lay down beneath some moldy rugs, intending to warm up a bit and catch his breath. Just in case he was being followed by someone other than Fenris, he fashioned a pitifully weak illusion around his body. Any looters who saw him would think they were looking at an elderly dog, hardly worth killing.

That last act of magic exhausted him. Finally allowed to rest, his body went almost instantly into sleep.

When he woke up, it wasn't because he'd gotten enough rest. Something outside of the house had triggered one of his senses. Partially asleep as he was, he didn't know which one, but it didn't matter. Doing his best to lie completely still, he peered out into the pre-dawn dim, eyes roving to and fro as they scanned his surroundings for potential threats.

Fire and smoke from the blazing city obliterated any star light, but Anders could make out a soft blue glow in the overgrown apple orchard. He didn't need to watch for long to know what it was. Lyrium tattoos were almost as distinctive as an abomination's magic-engorged veins.

There wasn't much point in hiding any longer. Illusions were about as useful as gauze blindfolds for concealing anything from Fenris. Anders dismissed the masking spell, tossed his rugs aside, and hurled a fireball in the direction he thought Fenris might head. Then he bolted out of the house toward the mountains.

He'd had a notion that he might take shelter with the Dalish, but that was impossible now. Fenris would slaughter all of the elves without hesitation if that was what he needed to do to get at Anders. Now the only option was to skirt the Dalish encampment entirely and try to reach one of the passes that led through the mountains.

The land tilted downward before it rolled back up toward Sundermount. It was all too easy to run down the gentle slope. Gravity was doing most of the work for him. He couldn't hear Fenris behind him, but he knew the elf was there. One glance over his shoulder would show that the pursuit was still on.

That tiny shred of sleep he'd gotten brought back some of his magic, so he conjured a blue ball of mage light to keep him from tripping over a root and careening the rest of the way into the valley. The light was probably giving away his position, and it made him a target for nocturnal predators, but Anders didn't think he was losing anything. Darkness wouldn't hide him now.

The downward slope took him out of the trees and into the boggy zone beyond Kirkwall's farmlands. He was far enough up the rivers for the water to be fresh, but not so far that he couldn't smell the sea on the breeze. He thought heading into the water might help obscure his trail and improve his chances of getting away, but he was wrong. Varying species of plants blocked his progress through the swamp, and it wasn't long before Fenris caught up with him again.

He was parting a clump of reeds to take a peek at the river's shoreline when a long blade swung through the air just beyond his knuckles. That killing arc slashed through right through the reeds. They fell in a heap into the water, splashing mud up the front of Anders' robe as they went. Beyond them, Fenris recovered from his swing and flowed backward into a ready stance. He didn't bother to speak this time. There was only room for one purpose in his mind now: murder, or perhaps vengeance.

Anders almost laughed at the irony of that thought, but there wasn't any time for laughter. Before Fenris could move again, Anders fired a freezing spell into the water. It might be nearly impossible to take Fenris down with a direct magical attack, but Anders wasn't trying to hit him. The elf cursed as water and plants froze around his legs in a slick shell. Anders didn't wait to see how well his spell would hold. He turned toward the far shore and hurriedly sloshed his way there.

Deciding that his best chance still lay in getting to Sundermount, Anders ran alongside the river toward its source. A bit of pre-dawn brightness was creeping into the landscape, so he dismissed his tiny light to save energy. About halfway to the mountain's foothills, he cut his left foot on a sharp rock he'd missed sticking up out of the soil. The wound hurt terribly, but there wasn't much he could do about it. He teased a scrap of magic out of his dwindling stock and used it to close the wound. No time to worry about whether or not it was clean. If infection set in, he would deal with it then. He used a bandage to wrap his foot and stumbled onward.

The incline of the land rose with the dawn. The closer he came to Sundermount, the more difficult the way became. He no longer had to contend with the local vegetation. The undergrowth in this part of the marsh was sparse. He no longer had the strength to run, so he walked beside the river. He stopped once to drink and to cleanse his wound. He spent the entire time at the water's edge feeling like he was about to be stabbed any moment. Curiously, Fenris never materialized. Anders managed to get his foot properly healed and bandaged, and he never once caught a hint of the elf's presence.

It was possible that Fenris was resting. He'd been up just as long as Anders had, and without the benefit of a few hours' sleep. Fenris was driven, but he wasn't completely insane. At least, Anders didn't think he was.

When the morning passed and the elf failed to put in an appearance, Anders gradually allowed his body to relax. Muscles he hadn't known were tensed eased out of their locked positions. He found some wild walnuts near the base of the mountain, cracked them with the butt of his staff, and settled down to eat them. They weren't exactly filling, and his belly grumbled for something more substantial, but he'd already pushed his luck enough. He got down on his knees to scatter the walnut shells in the grass. Then he felt two fingers touch the back of his neck.

It felt like every hair on his body stood straight up and pointed at the sun. Fear made him want to roll forward, but he came up short when Fenris wrapped those strong fingers into the fur of his collar. Anders nearly strangled himself trying to get away. Once his mind caught up to his limbs, he slumped backward and stopped resisting.

"Go ahead," he muttered dully, "I suppose someone's got to get his hands filthy killing me. May as well be you."

"You think my hands are clean? Amusing. You could be right. You did maim quite a few clergymen this morning. I'm rather surprised at you, actually. Even when you're under the influence of that thing you call Justice, you strike me as a bit of a weakling. You'd prefer to heal your enemies into submission, if you could."

Anders coughed weakly, and a small grin crept across his face. "You're not wrong. I tried that once, you know. Caught a templar back in Ferelden and tried to repair her mind."

"Somehow I don't see that going well."

"It didn't. The magic drove her mad. She tried to kill me."

Fenris chuckled. "Not so different from what she wanted to do in the first place, I'll wager."

"True enough."

Birds chirped into the silence that followed that brief conversation. They were there for a long time, Anders with his knees in the dirt, and Fenris with his hands tightly gripping Anders' robe. When five full minutes passed and Fenris still hadn't done the deed, Anders risked a few more words.

"Why are you chasing me?"

Fenris cuffed him across one cheek with one of his gauntlets. The blow opened a shallow gash along Anders' jaw. He could feel blood well up and dribble down his chin.

"Someone has to put you down before you blow up a place that actually matters."

Anders restrained the urge to reach up and wipe away the trickle of blood. "So you're saying the Chantry doesn't matter? Why seek vengeance for the men and women inside it then?"

Fenris heaved a massive, melodramatic sigh. His knee bumped against Anders' back and his grip loosened infinitesimally. "Haven't I already told you that's not what this is about? Elthina seemed like a good woman, but no truly good woman could survive as the High Cleric of Kirkwall. Somehow I doubt she went to Andraste with a soul as pure as the driven snow."

"Then why…"

Fenris rode right over what Anders had been about to say. "There is an orphanage attached to the Chantry."

"Yes, I know."

"While you were busy making good your escape, the fire you set spread to the orphanage. The woman who runs the place barely managed to get the children out in time. Some of them were badly burned."

Anders closed his eyes and tried not to think of all the children who'd died in his arms because he wasn't able to heal them. "I swear, I did my best to contain my spell to the interior of the Chantry. I didn't know the surrounding buildings would take fire as well."

Fenris tugged his Anders' collar backward so he could look down into the mage's eyes. The gesture was oddly gentle, especially considering his recent attempts at evisceration.

"Strange. You don't appear to be lying."

"That's because I'm not."

"Regardless of your motivations, you placed the orphanage in harm's way."

"Who'd have thought?" Anders crowed. "The battle-hardened elf warrior has a soft spot for children."

"You find this situation amusing."

"Of course not." Anders let his chin drop to his chest. "Children are meant to be loved and cherished, Maker or no Maker. Fenris, you've got to believe me when I say I never meant to put any of them in danger. I don't want to go into the Fade with you thinking I'm a baby killer."

"If you keep throwing around magic trying to prove your point, one day soon you will be."

Anders smiled. "Never. Justice could never have tolerated the death of a child, and that means I can't either."

"You've gone against the spirit's wishes in the past."

Anders noted that Fenris had reverted to calling Justice a spirit instead of "thing" or "demon." That seemed like an improvement.

"Not in this," Anders said firmly. "The murder of a child could never be considered just."

Fenris snorted. "You can't have known many children, if you still believe that."

A volley of glib responses sprang to mind, but Anders managed to keep them all from escaping out through his mouth. "If you're going to kill me, you ought to get it over with. I'm sure Marian could use your help."

"Hawke can manage her own affairs," Fenris replied.

"Not when she's busy trying to save an entire city from itself!"

Fenris' fingers shifted until they were around Anders' neck. Then they constricted just enough to impair his breathing. The metal guards on the elf's hands were hard and cold.

"The blame for this debacle lies mostly with you."

Anders was gasping, but not suffocating. Fenris was certainly precise when it came to torture. "Do you really believe that? Meredith is a tyrant. She executes everyone who even looks like they might disagree with her. If you want to blame someone for Kirkwall's demise, it should be her. I was only the catalyst that set her off."

"She was a tyrant," Fenris agreed. His fingers relaxed infinitesimally.

"What do you mean 'was'?"

Anders resisted the urge to claw away at the hands that held him.

_Fortunate for me that I've got so much practice restraining my urges._

"Meredith was a mad dog," Fenris explained. "I watched Hawke tear out her throat. A fitting end for a woman who dabbled in blood magic."

Anders' mind whirled, and not from lack of air getting to his brain. "Meredith isn't a mage."

"No."

Quickly summing up everything he knew about that horrid woman, Anders arrived at a conclusion. "The dwarf's idol!"

"And it comes to him."

Fenris let go of Anders' throat at last. The mage fell forward and rubbed his hand up and down his neck to erase the memory of that killing grip. When he mustered the courage to turn his head and then to look at Fenris, the elf stared blithely back at him.

"For a mage of your venerable experience, you certainly are slow to comprehend certain aspects of spellcraft."

"Are you calling me old?" Anders quipped. "No, don't answer that. So the idol controlled Meredith the same way it did Bartrand. That's one powerfully evil spirit! Please tell me one of you broke the statue into itty bits."

"With my own blade," Fenris assured him. They stared at one another for at least a full minute before Anders finally had to speak.

"You're awfully friendly for a man on the war path. What happened to murdering me in my sleep?"

Fenris shrugged. "You told me you didn't intend harm to those children. I believe you."

"I still killed Elthina and an entire Chantry full of clerics."

"Did you?" Fenris came over and hunkered down beside Anders. Not close enough to be threatening, but close enough to be amiable. "There's a funny thing about watching a man night and day. Sometimes you see more than you anticipated. You went into the Chantry to set the trap spell in the morning. That will have taken you what, a few minutes?"

"Five," Anders admitted.

"Yet you were in the Chantry for nearly three hours. What were you doing all that time?"

Anders sighed. "Trying to convince the novices that they should be anywhere but the Chantry that day."

Fenris snapped his fingers like he'd won something. Maybe he had.

"Exactly. I don't imagine many power-crazed abominations pause to engage in damage control before they wreak their havoc. They just roll ahead without any regard for their safety or that of anyone around them."

"I've already told you a hundred times that magic doesn't corrupt every mage—"

Anders broke off mid-sentence as he realized the implications of what Fenris was telling him. He punched the smaller man on the shoulder. "You unbelievable bastard! You knew this whole time what I was about and you still chased me halfway across the Free Marches! You let me think you meant to kill me!"

Fenris chose to ignore the blow, fortunately. "When I first caught you, I had every intention of slaughtering you just as Hawke did Meredith. You have her to thank for that hesitation."

"I doubt anyone would have blamed you if you had gone through with it," Anders muttered ruefully, "but something must have changed your mind. What was it?"

"I had a great deal of time to think while I was running you down. Certain patterns in your behavior occurred to me when I thought back over these past six years. You may be an insufferable proselytizer, but you are not, I think, an indiscriminate killer."

"How kind of you to phrase it so specifically."

Fenris smirked. "If you sit there and try to tell me you've healed more folk than you've harmed, you'll be a liar as well as a terrorist, my friend."

It was only Anders' knowledge of Fenris' troubled past that let him believe the elf could think of a man as both a saboteur and a friend.

"So where do we go from here?"

Fenris eyed him thoughtfully. "You tell me."

"Are you going to let me go?"

"That is a possible scenario, but not a likely one. Though you may mean well, you're still a menace. Do you really expect me to let a renegade mage slink about the countryside blowing up everything that gets in his way?"

Anders frowned and got to his feet. Fenris rose with him, but Anders still had the advantage of several inches. "So you're going to drag me back to the Circle and chain me up with all the others."

"No. Orsino is dead, and the new Archmage holds power by her fingernails."

"What then? You can't mean to kill me after all!"

"I can't kill every mage in the Free Marches."

"That hasn't kept you from trying!"

"Six years in Kirkwall has taught me that there will always be those with power who lack the discipline to control it. If they are unlucky, their power eventually turns on them and destroys everything they know and love. If they are lucky, they have friends and family around them who are willing to say when they've gone too far. You've gone too far, Anders."

"You have no right!"

"I have every right."

Fenris glanced down at his hands. The glow of his tattoos wasn't visible in the daylight, but Anders knew it was there.

"I'll make you a deal. Go ten years without immolating any more clerics and I'll believe you have the control to live among your fellow men."

Anders bristled. "How do you plan to know whom I have and haven't burned?"

"I plan to be with you. If any buildings explode in our vicinity, I'll know which mage to choke in his sleep."

A few moments passed while Anders absorbed that particularly gruesome image. "You aren't offering much of a deal."

"Sure I am! Accept, and you get to keep your head. You'll have your chance to convince me you don't burn cradles for fun."

Anders didn't have a return sally for that, so he decided to change the subject. "If we're going on the run, we ought to do something about your tattoos."

"What do you mean, 'do something' about them?"

"You can't just go gallivanting all across Thedas looking like someone's dumped half the Fade on you."

"It's never stopped me before."

"All right, but everyone who sees us traveling together is going to think I'm the mage who enchanted you. They'll either drown me or tear you apart or both."

"So I'll wear a cloak."

Anders threw up his hands and put on a vacant, lopsided grin. "Maker be praised! The man will wear a cloak! Now we'll be perfectly safe."

"My objective isn't to keep you safe," Fenris reminded him, "and I feel obliged to inform you that your penchant for sarcasm is your least attractive quality."

"Fenris, that implies that you think I have attractive qualities."

"Interpret my words as you wish."

"I always do."

"You always do."

Anders paused to think after that. A small part of him still wanted to travel back the way he'd come and help undo some of the harm he'd caused. He quickly squashed that notion. Repairing the damage in Kirkwall would only serve to undermine his objective. Instead he started heading toward Sundermount again. Fenris fell in beside him, and by mutual silent agreement they spoke of nothing important. Trivial talk did very little to clear the air between them, but it was better than having to deal with the reality of recent events.

It took them less time to cover ground now that Anders wasn't trying to hide and Fenris wasn't trying to track him. They were within sight of the pass that led across the mountains in less than two hours. When Anders squinted, he could just make out the colorful sails of the Dalish landships. He paused at the base of the mountain and put a hand on Fenris' arm. The elf didn't flinch or pull away, and Anders had to admit that he found that absence of disgust immensely gratifying.

"Let me have a go at the tattoos," he said bluntly. Green eyes rolled in Fenris' head.

"We have had this conversation before. You cannot remove them. No man alive can. I doubt even Danarius knew more than how to transfer the designs from one man to another."

"How can we know if you never let me try?"

"No."

Anders let go and shook his head. "I don't understand. I know they cause you a great deal of pain. Wouldn't you like to be rid of it?"

"Of course I would!"

Fenris paced back and forth across the path. His heavy stride was already tramping down the adventurous grass shoots that had grown up through a crack in the earth. "This pain is nothing compared to what it was like to have the lyrium burned into my skin. This, I can tolerate."

"So you're afraid. That's not like you."

Anders reached out toward the smaller man, but Fenris knocked the hand away and continued pacing.

"Imagine a thousand thousand hot needles driving into your flesh all at the same time. Then imagine that those needles are tipped with an acid that seeps into your blood and lights your intestines on fire. Experience these sensations, and then you will have an idea of what I have known."

"I'm sure I wouldn't have weathered the trauma half so well as you have," Anders told him. "Still, if someone offered a chance to take that pain away, I'd take it."

"Perhaps," Fenris said thoughtfully. He stopped pacing and peered over at Anders. "If I don't let you try, you'll never shut up about it, will you?"

Anders didn't bother to answer the question, since they both knew the answer. Fenris sighed and came over to stand beside him. Anders flexed his hands and leaned in to examine Danarius' handiwork. He simultaneously dreaded and savored this opportunity. The magic written into Fenris' skin was artful and potent. Danarius might have been a villain and a slave driver, but his work was masterful. Though the body it had been etched into was not symmetrical, the design was. What few imperfections there were lay masked beneath the overall impression of the design. Anders never would have noticed them if Fenris hadn't given him this chance to observe up close.

Ander spent the better part of an hour working his way across the elf's lean frame. He very carefully turned off that wedge of his mind that connected to the lower half of his body. Fenris was a patient now, not an object to be explored. Anders examined the pale blue patterns down to the tiniest detail, and then he stepped back so he could observe the whole. He even made Fenris remove his vest briefly so he could see how blue whorls clustered near the heart.

"I think I can do this," he said at last. "Are you ready?"

"Doubtful," Fenris replied. "Do it anyway."

Anders placed his hand over the spot on Fenris' chest that he'd determined was the linchpin of Danarius' enchantment. Then he reached into the magic and yanked.

He struggled through the last steps into the Dalish encampment at the base of Sundermount. He didn't quite collapse in the dirt, but it was a very near miss. Fenris lay on his back. The elf was doing nothing to support his weight. Severing the enchantment that held his tattoos together had released the magic, and the consequences were worse than Anders had feared. The memory of Fenris' screams still haunted him hours later. It had almost been a relief when the elf finally lapsed into unconsciousness.

The tattoos faded rapidly as the design broke down, and Anders realized belatedly that the new excess of lyrium was flooding through Fenris' body. Fenris wasn't a mage. He had no way of shaping the power that was inside him, and no recourse for letting it go now that it was there. Anders did the best he could to make him comfortable, but there was nothing he could do here on the road in the middle of the Marches.

Sundermount was the nearest vestige of civilization, so Anders headed there. He marched with Fenris' arms hanging limp across his shoulders. Twice he had to veer off the road and into the trees as bands of mounted men roved down the path with their weapons drawn and a mad look in their eyes. They could have been bandits, and they could have been raiders who'd strayed inland from the coast. Either way, they would have made quick work of a tired mage and his sleeping burden. Anders only hoped that the horsemen weren't riding away after an attack on the Dalish.

In this, at least, he was fortunate. The elven camp looked much as it always had, although Keeper Marethari was not there to welcome him at the bonfire. Instead, another woman came to greet him. She had very fair hair that she kept in a long braid flat against her back, and she wore the dyed green leather armor that Dalish hunters favored.

"_Nereth'tiral, _shem. There is nothing we can do for your friend."

"I know that."

Anders knelt and carefully deposited Fenris' inert body on the grass. "I didn't bring him here to ask for healing. I only need a safe place to stay tonight."

The Dalish shook her head and gazed down at Fenris. "At least he will die near the bones of his ancestors. You may stay, though I cannot promise we will remain come morning. We have troubles of our own. War is on its way to the Marches, if it is not already here."

"So everyone tells me. Thank you for granting us sanctuary, even if it is only for a night."

Freed of the need to guard his back every waking moment, Anders could focus on extracting the lyrium he'd let loose inside Fenris' body. First he checked to be sure the elf was still breathing. He pressed two fingers against Fenris' throat and leaned in close to listen for the telltale hiss of air. They were fortunate. Lyrium poisoning might have rendered Fenris comatose, but his breathing seemed to be unaffected. Anders wasn't sure if that trend would continue, or if the lyrium just hadn't had time to percolate all the way through the elf's bloodstream.

Extracting the poison was gruesome work. He had to use his belt knife to open a vein so the lyrium would have a way to exit the body. At first he worried the Dalish might accuse him of practicing blood magic, but these particular elves had seen enough to recognize a man who was only trying to save a life. When they realized what he was doing, they brought bandages and a horn full of clean water.

Progress was painfully slow. Anders held his hand beside the wound he'd opened in Fenris' arm and willed the crystallized magic out. Twice he extracted clots of blood that had tiny blue shards at their cores. It was only dumb luck that they hadn't traveled all the way back to the heart.

It was impossible to repair all of the damage he was doing to the arm, so Anders had to pick and choose what he could save. There was no way to know for sure how well Fenris would be able to function when this was over, if Anders could even save him at all.

_Wish Marian was here,_ he thought as he summoned another glob of tainted blood out of Fenris' elbow. _She'd threaten to hang me up by my hair if I didn't finish the job. She's also got a hell of a lot more knives than I do._

He was exhausted long before the task was done. He drank every potion he had, risking an overdose himself so he could continue working the spells that purified Fenris' blood and kept his organs from shutting down completely. All around them, the Dalish were packing up their goods and preparing to move on. They replaced the bloodied bandages twice, and a kind older man furnished Anders with a root stimulant that tasted foul but kept him alert.

Eventually he had to admit defeat. There was too much lyrium in the blood for any mortal to extract it all. Even if Anders could have done the impossible, it probably would have killed Fenris anyway. Anders knew enough about addiction to sense that Fenris had borne the tattoos for so long that his body was dependent on the lyrium. The magic was slowly killing him, but so would the withdrawal if Anders acted too precipitously and yanked the lyrium out all at once.

_"Ir'inan abelas, magarel."_

Anders felt a heavy blanket drop onto his shoulders. He was so weary he couldn't even look at the one who'd given it to him, but he couldn't go to sleep. He had to wait. He had to know if Fenris would wake up.

Fenris was hot. He felt like someone had stuffed him from head to toe with wool and then swaddled his entire body with the material, just in case he wasn't already miserable enough. The heat annoyed him, which was strange, because he'd been through far worse in his time. It was so unnecessary. He wanted to hurl the oppressive layers away and seize a breath of fresh air. It didn't help that everything smelled like the fetid interior of a dead ogre. Perhaps the thoughtful soul who'd wrapped him in the blankets believed the gesture would tie his soul to his body and keep him from escaping. Fenris would have laughed at the futility of that idea, but he couldn't control his lungs or his throat.

He couldn't even truly be certain whether or not he was alive. It was his privilege to be somewhat less superstitious than the next elf to pass by, but even he had no way of knowing what happened after life left a man's body. Perhaps his consciousness yet lingered, disconnected by mortality from his limbs and his mind. Some said the Black City lay blasted by the heat of an eternally burning sun. That would certainly account for the obnoxious temperature.

Someone snored beside him. Such a mundane, irritating noise couldn't possibly come from the beyond. Fenris was forced to admit that he might be alive. Then he was even more annoyed, because if he was alive, someone must have attached this stifling cocoon of cloth to him while he was unconscious. He tried moving his lips again, and this time they responded.

"Anders."

The snorer droned on, oblivious to Fenris' feeble croak.

"Anders!"

He managed an approximation of a shout, and the snores abruptly died away. "Fenris?"

"Who else, you idiot magicker? Why did you truss me up like some kind of feast day pig?"

Hands applied a light pressure to both sides of his head. He felt the familiar touch of magic play across his face. For once, the sensation didn't make his skin crawl. He still wanted to open his eyes so he could declare his exasperation in his favorite way, but apparently his mind hadn't reactivated that connection yet. He settled for grunting disapprovingly.

"Your body temperature was falling," Anders explained. He removed his hands and started unwrapping the blankets. "I was out of potions, so I couldn't cast a spell to warm you up. It was touch and go there, for a while."

"You're surprised?"

Anders chuckled softly. "Not at all. That enchantment was a nasty bit of work. Alluring and masterfully crafted, but nasty. You'll be weak for some time, and you may feel a sense of loss now that the power the tattoos granted you is gone."

Fenris did feel that loss, but he didn't find it necessary to rub that particular fact in. Instead he tried moving his right hand. Finding it responsive to his commands, he groped around in the direction of Anders' voice until he touched skin.

"You have my thanks," he told the mage.

Anders harrumphed uncomfortably. "See if you still feel that way when we're eating stale Dalish way bread and boiled leather for supper. We're stuck here until you recover, and I'm not much of a hunter."

"I'll be on my feet in no time. You'll see. I heal quickly."

"I don't doubt it. Fenris—"

"Stop."

Something told Fenris that Anders was about to detail the extent of his injuries. Any good healer would do the same. It was only fair to let the patient know what was causing his pain.

"I don't need to know if you think I'm going to recover or not. I'm alive. I'm free of Danarius' curse. I don't need anything else."

Fingers closed around his wrist. Anders had a light healer's touch, but his grip was firm, like he was trying to reassure himself that Fenris was still there. Weakness kept Fenris from returning the gesture with any force, so he settled for tapping the pad of his pointer finger against the underside of Anders' forearm.

"It's going to be a hell of a lot more difficult to keep you out of trouble now that you can enchant me whenever you like," he pointed out. Anders let out a choking noise somewhere on the spectrum between a squeak and a cough.

"I'll do my best to keep out of trouble."

"See that you do."


End file.
